


lamely still-untitled oneshots

by astrologicallyDubious (ruination_fangs)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, but let's be honest it's mostly john/rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2017-11-19 14:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 19,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruination_fangs/pseuds/astrologicallyDubious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short-ish fics based on a 100 Themes challenge.</p><p>Latest (5/9/14) -- Mother Nature:<br/>"Are you familiar with that inexplicable feeling that something is crawling on you?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Standing Still

**Author's Note:**

> how do you title these kinds of things???
> 
> Each theme is a different story, so ratings, warnings, and such vary, and will be updated as more entries are added.  
> Originally all of these were going to be drabbles like the first one, but they got... a little out of hand...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #42

He stands staring at the clock on the wall, trying to make sense of the numbers. He remembers when he was younger and he’d never look at the time, always getting so wrapped up in his beats and his games that he lost track of the hours.

Now, the clock looks strange to him, like a word repeated so many times that it doesn’t sound like a word anymore. The numbers have lost all meaning. The steady ticking of the seconds isn’t even a constant – he can change it, he can make the hands turns backwards or skip ahead. There is no linearity. It’s not a countdown, it’s a variable.

He thinks of so many men and women living their lives according to the little mechanical gears that turn the minute hand. He is no longer a slave to time, not to the changing hours or the rising and setting of the sun or the rotations of the earth.

In a society that worships the clock, he would be a god.


	2. Broken Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #76  
> John/Rose, mentions of (canon) character deaths

When you think of Rose Lalonde, you think of a kind of calm strength, a reserved intensity, a sharp tongue and a sharper mind. You think of rationality to the point of emotional detachment, pedantry intended to obscure the person behind the big words. You think of serious conversations interspersed with snarky jokes and a dry sense of humor.

What you don’t think of is the girl standing in front of you now, clutching your shirt so tightly her fingernails dig into your back. You don’t think of Rose Lalonde as someone who buries her head in your shoulder to hide a failing attempt at fighting back tears, someone who allows you to put your arms around her and feel her shaking.

You thought that it would be  _Rose_  rubbing  _your_  back and stroking your hair, silent for lack of any suitable words to fix this. You’ve been through a lot today. You’ve lost a home and a childhood. You’ve seen lives snatched away – those of friends, that of your father, and twice your own. You’ve faced the end of the world and the destruction of the universe and a game you’ve been told you can’t win.

But she, she has been to the edge and back. She has heard the whispering of dark gods and unwillingly become the puppet of powerful forces beyond anyone’s comprehension. She has prepared for martyrdom, for a mission to save you and forsake herself. She has stood over the stiffening body of a mother she didn’t know she loved, words on the tip of her tongue that won’t come off because they are too late to change anything. She has lost family and lost you and lost herself.

You have a knack for remaining optimistic, or so you’ve been told  _(or so she told you)_ , an ability to brush off the most desolate circumstances and keep moving forward. Yes, at times you’ve felt your spirit crushed and at times you’ve wanted to cry, but you insist that everything will be all right in the end.

You thought she would do the same. You’ve seen her spit in the face of destiny, disregard all warnings of a hopeless future and fight to win by whatever means necessary. You’ve seen her face a demon and break a game. You’ve seen her wield knitting needles like magic wands and destroy fearsome monsters with a flick of a graceful wrist. You’ve seen her take control of every situation she’s been in and confront the end of all she knows without batting an eyelash.

But you’ve never seen her cry. The very idea had never occurred to you.

A lot of things have been broken today. Limbs. Gates. Sburb itself. The lives you knew. All of you have been fractured in some way or another. Rose Lalonde was the one you didn’t expect to fall apart, and there is something frightening about seeing cracks in a surface you thought was shatterproof.

You hold her as close as possible and she doesn’t object, only shakes her head under your chin and apologizes in trembling breaths, and you try to tell her it will all be okay because you’re not even sure what she’s apologizing  _for_. You kind of want to cry, too, for everything you’ll never be able to get back and everything you’ll never be able to forget, but you close your eyes and press your face to her hair and let her lean against you.

For now -- only for now -- she is no longer the strong one. She is broken, and you will be the one to put her back together.


	3. Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #11

There’s a day when he steps outside and the wind catches his arm. He’s running late, gotta get to school, still throwing on his coat as he half-walks half-trips out the front door, and he pauses with one sleeve still hanging empty at his side. Everything is still. Then another gust shakes the trees, dropping a few orange and red maple leaves to a ground he suddenly imagines as rocky and oily, and the hairs on his bare arm stand up again. It’s not because he’s cold. It’s because when the wind touched him the first time, blew his hair away from his forehead and tugged at the bottom of his pant legs, he almost felt like he was… flying. Like he owned the wind, rode it through the clouds over blue mountains and black rivers, no wings, no sails, just endless shades of blue…

He blinks and the feeling is gone. Flying? Where did that come from? The closest he’s ever been to flying was jumping off the swingset as a kid. And yet there’s something pulling at the back of his brain, a breeze strumming the strings of his mind like a harp, reminding him of something he just can’t quite remember.

 

There’s a day when she opens her curtains and the rain catches her eye. She’s just woken up, still rubbing dreams from a tired face, and rather than turning on the light she pulls back the shades to illuminate her darkened room. For a moment she is blinded; how is it this bright when it’s still rather early? As she blinks open her eyes again and looks outside, her breath catches in her throat. The sun is dazzling, lighting up the raindrops in pink and yellow and light blue, pastel threads woven together against a backdrop of budding leaves and early flowers. It seems to glow.

She opens the window and the colors are gone. Was it just the light playing tricks on her? Is she still dreaming? It’s not uncommon for the sun to be shining while it’s raining, no, not uncommon for rainbows to add a little color to the dull gray that seems perpetually to encompass this murky mansion of a house. But she can’t erase this vision of Easter egg-colored water, burned into her mind by an almost searing light as if she’d seen it herself once.

 

There’s a day when he emerges onto the roof and the heat hits him. He’s here to train, run through some sword moves, the usual daily regimen, and he hasn't forgotten to put sunscreen on his bare skin. Experience has taught him the hard way not to face the summer sun alone. But when he steps out of the shadows of the staircase, a heat wave like nothing he’s ever felt passes over him. For a moment he sees the skyscrapers as charred black frames, the sun a scalding gear radiating heat that turns everything lava-red.

He takes another step forward and the warmth is gone. Were the ripples of heat distorting his vision? Was it a mirage? Even with his shades on he has to raise a hand over his eyes to properly see the cityscape around him, undisturbed by conflagrations, but he can’t forget the dry bones of what used to be a city and a sky scored by hurtling meteors.

 

There’s a day when she goes exploring and the chill hits her. She’s out on the hills, examining the plants and practicing with her gun as she often does, running over the grass in a skirt the same pale shade as the wintry sky. Even at this time of year it’s not very cold on the island, but that gust carried the sharp tang of frost and she’s not sure how she knows that because it’s never been cold enough for the dew to freeze here in her lifetime. It gives her an impression of the trees coated in sparkling ice, her bright island awash in dark green and white the likes of which she’s only seen in books and in photographs on the internet.

She turns around and the chilliness is gone. When she touches her hands together they’re as warm as ever, so where did this freezing feeling come from? Is there such a thing as cold flashes? She wiggles her fingers, a healthy peach shade, not at all blue or paled by below-zero temperatures. She’s never known the clammy skin or tingling sensation in her nose from stepping outside into the cold, yet she feels as if the island hasn’t always been this warm. 


	4. Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #80  
> John/Rose, mentions of death/suicide

“In retrospect, my actions lately have been less than well thought-out. Though it may seem otherwise I do take pleasure in being able to call you a friend, and a very good one at that, but I feel I have neglected to treat you with the respect such a title deserves.

“It was discourteous, to say the least, on my part to allow my attention to drift from all of you for so long -- particularly when you were so attentive to me. I confess myself impressed with your ability to detect my impending troubles before even I did. You were right to warn me of the dubious nature of my leads and I was wrong to disregard your counsel. I am rather ashamed at how I let this get the better of me.

“Perhaps it is part of a larger pattern of mistakes on my part. It has not escaped my notice that, of both the times we have met in person, it was I who complicated things, firstly by being asleep and secondly by being unable to communicate with you. Had I been in a more stable frame of mind at the time perhaps I would have tried harder to find an alternative method of conveying my thoughts, as would have been wise in such a perilous situation. Alas, I did not suitably prepare you for what I knew you would discover on the roof of the tower when I should have been able at least to soften the blow.

“Any number of these things may have contributed to what was to come. It would have been prudent of me not to lead you unsuspecting to such a disturbing and dangerous scene, or preferably to turn you away altogether rather than endanger your life by tangling you in my ill-thought out desire for revenge. It was even more foolish of me to allow myself to fall prey to the same fate, though by that point it was surely the only outcome, and allow you to revive to the sight of yet another bloody corpse. Having seen your murder, the aftermath of mine is not a sight I would wish upon you.

“After all this, it is not without regret that I leave on this mission. It was my plan from the start, though originally I had not expected it to be my final act of defiance against this game. I had hoped at least to speak to you one last time (or should I say once at all), and under different circumstances it might have been a possibility, but I hope you realize that it is now unrealistic if not downright impossible. I know that you would not think highly of my plan and it must go against your ideals, but please do not look upon it as insubordination of what would surely have been your orders had you had the chance to give them. Despite your reservations you have a great deal of sway when it comes to commanding our team; had I listened to you earlier, we wouldn’t be in this predicament to begin with. Take this as recognition of both your skills as a leader and support as a friend.

“As long as I’m spewing heartfelt confessions with such deplorable sincerity, I will admit I would much have preferred the opportunity to say goodbye to you in person. I make no pretences; it is easier, perhaps on both of us, to hide behind written words and physical distance when my path cannot be changed. Nevertheless, for purely sentimental reasons, I do wish we could have met properly just once, without the hindrances of impromptu naps or twisted vocal cords. Call me a romantic – knowing a conversation is one’s last surely makes one reckless in displays of feeling – but I did enjoy talking to you and I lament the fact that I of necessity left the dialogue so one-sided. I would have appreciated the chance to allay your fears in words you could have understood and assure you that I was not averse to your, or rather Karkat’s, proposition. I think I would have been... quite okay with it.

“I’m afraid I’m merely rambling at this point. By the time you receive this message it is quite likely I will be gone, so please don’t try to come after me and please don’t blame yourself. You have done your best; it was through no fault of yours that I have led myself down such a twisted and unforgiving path. You still have a job to do and I am confident you will find a way to succeed. Initiate the Scratch, save yourselves, and live.

“You’ve made this short life a little happier and for that I thank you. I fear now that I have not done enough to warrant such unwavering friendship, and could I offer you any acceptable token of gratitude in return I would. At the very least, please know that it was my sincere pleasure to know you, and I wish you the best.

“Goodbye.”

 

TG: what did you want me to tell john  
TT: Tell him...  
TT: "I’m sorry."


	5. Dying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #43  
> Dave/Jade, character death (surprise)

It’s the first time you’ve ever met in person. You’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time, looking forward to her bucktoothed grin and the way she leaps up to hug you like a dog whose master just came home. (Great Harley, best friend.)

But all you can think about is what her face is going to look like when you die.

You give her the barest hint of a grin, which is enough, and she takes you by the hand and leads you away from the house. Her skin is freezing and you wonder why the hell she’s wearing that skimpy dress when her planet looks like a winter wonderland right off a Christmas card. She’s gonna get frostbite and die or something. Didn’t anyone ever teach her you have to dress warmer to play in the snow?

No, probably not. No one ever taught you, either, so you say nothing, just rub your sleeve against your arm slightly and try to keep your teeth from chattering. You’re like, the physical manifestation of cool. You can handle a little frost.

It’s okay because Jade has got you running all over the place, which fends off some of the chill. You think the stupid amphibians should be huddled up freezing or dying from the ice in their veins or at least slowed down, but some of them are slippery and more than once you fall into a snowdrift chasing after one. Jade just giggles and helps you up and now her hands feel so much warmer and you don’t want to let go.

Still, every once in a while you look up at the sky and remember that you won’t be here for long. The thought makes your insides feel as cold as your fingers. As frozen as your lifeless body is going to be in a couple of hours -- you fail to repress a shiver.

Sometimes when Jade has her back to you, you think about leaving. It would be easy – just whip out the turntables and spin somewhere else, somewhere in the past maybe, somewhere safer and definitely somewhere warmer. You don’t  _have_  to do this. There’s nothing keeping you in this god-forsaken tundra. Jade would understand; hell, she’d probably  _thank_  you.

Except you’ve seen the results of messing up the time loops and you know, however bad it’s going to hurt Jade (not to mention yourself) to go through with this, it’ll be even worse if you split this off into a doomed timeline. You either die here or wait for your entire existence to fade to black. It makes the choice easier, if not the fulfillment of it.

So you play it cool, act like there’s nothing wrong. You’ve got all the time in the world for Harley and as far as you’re concerned you can play frog hunter until your appendages turn blue. (Never mind  _why_ they’ll be turning blue.)

And she’s all smiles and energy and laughter, a little flash of warmth beginning to melt your apprehensions and you think, for a little while, that it’s worth it just to spend this time with her, the precious little time you have left.

Until you scoop up a frog and turn around to show her, another witty remark on the tip of your tongue that dies when you see her face. You don’t have to look over her shoulder to know what she’s staring at. Your heart feels like it’s already dropped to your stomach by the time the frogs jump out of your hands and you swing around, sword at the ready, in front of her.

Jack – Bec – whoever he is, Noir, lands in front of you and watches you with those blank eyes, measuring you. You can tell he thinks you won’t put up a decent fight. It would make you angry if you didn’t already know he’s right.

Every second that passes now is a tick closer to your death, a countdown to an end you’ve already seen. You remember standing above your own body on your quest bed and raising your sword, Terezi’s teal text just daring you to go through with it, and the way your arms faltered and dropped back down to your sides. You remember wondering what would become of that other Dave, the one promised a chance of godhood and then denied because of his own – your – cowardice. You remember what it felt like, imagining your body spilling red onto the stone, shed by your own hand, how you weren’t sure if your hesitation was a fear of killing or a fear of being killed.

That same sword parries Noir’s strike and you dodge to the side, wondering if there’s truly a difference between that and this. You had the chance to end your own life. If you had known then what that life was going to come to, would you have done it? Would you have watched yourself die there with the promise of immense power, to spare Jade having to watch you die here?

Jade doesn’t know, she still doesn’t know, and when she pulls out her gun you barely keep from flinching. You don’t blame her, of course. She doesn’t mean to do it and if you had breathed the slightest hint of it to her she probably would have thrown out her strife specibus hours ago just to prevent it. That’s why you didn’t say anything.

It’s not fair, you know, not to you or to her, but if there’s one thing you’ve learned, it’s that time is relentless. You thought you controlled it now. You were wrong. Dead Daves are the enemy, but no amount of stabilizing your time loops could have prevented this one.

It’s hard to concentrate on the fight when you know that each bullet could be the one that kills you. Your heart is pounding and there's a steadily-growing ticking in your head, measuring your final seconds, just to drive it home. You thought you had come to terms with your impending death. Apparently not.

When it happens it seems to be in slow motion. You see the tendrils of energy around Noir’s black frame, green electricity that makes both him and the bullets vanish, and you know where they are even before they pierce through your back.

You didn’t think it would hurt this much.

Part of you wants to close your eyes but they’re glued open, suddenly blurry but clear enough to see her turn around. You watch her expression change from bewilderment to abhorrence, see her eyes widen, greener than the trees around you. You hit the ground at about the same moment as her gun.

And then she’s by your side, kneeling and holding onto your shoulders. Her beautiful black dress was already flecked with frost, a complement to the sparkles that rippled when she moved, but now the snow is soaking through the material around her knees. It makes you realize you’re not very cold anymore. Strangely enough, all you really feel is the warmth of the blood spreading on your chest and rising in your throat, and of course her hands, warm and full of life as ever.

Your thoughts are growing fuzzy as if you’re falling asleep. An inclination to take off your glasses and get one real look at her passes you by, but it doesn’t reach your hands. You’re not sure if her eyes look so watery because your vision is fading or if she’s crying. You hope she isn’t crying. There’s still a part of you that recognizes it’s not the end because you still have your dreamself, but god, it feels like it is.

Even if you wake up again it’s still dying.


	6. 67%

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #70  
> (by the way the only reason I'm updating so fast is because I'm crossposting from tumblr  
> the pace won't last u_u)

At first there were twelve. It had started out with you and eleven others, friends or at least something akin to that, brought together half in competition and half in camaraderie to play this game. And it worked. You almost won. It was after that that everything started falling apart.

Because then there were eleven. No one really knew why or how Aradiabot exploded. It seemed almost redundant, given that she was technically already dead before, but you don’t think on it much. Maybe it’s the one thing you had no control over.

Then there were ten. You didn’t know, not at first, because you’d begun losing track of things. Ten people are a lot to keep an eye on, especially when they’re troublesome nooksniffers like these guys, and you had a lot on your plate. So it wasn’t really surprising when you didn’t notice Tavros missing and Vriska nowhere to be found. If you’d kept better track of them, or just stopped the idiot from confronting her, or put an end to her antics earlier…

Then there were nine. When Eridan marched back into the room, desperate with some new purpose, some new hope, you might have expected him to get into another one of his spats with Sollux. You certainly didn’t expect him to raise his wand to Feferi and, just like that, another troll dead, right before your eyes. If you’d just done something instead of gawk like a helpless grub…

Then there were eight. Kanaya was braver than you, stepping up to stop the traitor. Nobler, certainly. Stupider, too, maybe, though you hadn’t believed that anyone could so callously murder someone like Kanaya. But Eridan did, and he simply walked away, leaving a blind body, two corpses, and a still stunned leader. If you’d just  _done_  something…

Then there were seven. Ironically it was Gamzee you’d been worried about; passive, friendly Gamzee could never hurt a fly, right? Which is why it terrified you when Gamzee’s text on your screen was no longer complacent and whimsical but screaming and dangerous. Your only thought was to stop this before anything worse happened. You didn’t imagine that biased blue-blooded fool would let Gamzee wrap a bowstring around his neck. You should've known. If you hadn’t sent Equius…

Then there were six. You also didn’t know that Nepeta would follow her moirail, even in death. You should have realized endangering Equius would be endangering Nepeta. If you had made sure she was safe first…

Then there were five. You have no idea that Kanaya is alive, no idea that she threw reservations and respect to the wind to make Eridan pay for his crimes with a bloody but mercifully short death. It doesn't matter, because either way he's dead to you now. If you'd been able to stop him, keep him from giving up...

Then there were four. Vriska had been a problem since the beginning, since  _before_  the beginning, and you knew things wouldn’t come to a good end with her. But you had hoped they would come to a better ending than this, than a stab in the back to save you. You knew it was the only solution, the justice Terezi was strong enough to enact even though you wouldn’t have been, but you still wonder, what if you’d been able to talk some sense into Vriska, to rein her in before, to find another way…

You’ve just found Terezi standing over the body of the girl who used to be her best friend -- shaking, silent, but alive.

You don’t know where Sollux is, blind and alone, only pray that he’s still alive too.

You don’t know where Gamzee is, either, just that he's definitely alive, which means that you might not be for long.

But it hardly seems to matter. 67% of your team is dead, and it’s all your fault.


	7. Test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #77

If this is a test, you are afraid you are failing miserably.

You found her in a crater, like something out of a science fiction movie. Abandoned, some sort of changeling perhaps, not of this world. (Something about that rings bells in your mind but you’re not sure why.) Her very existence is magic.

There is little you can do but take her in. As a scientist yourself you know that if she were to fall into the wrong hands she would be nothing more than a curiosity, a novelty to be studied and explained. She doesn't need to be explained. She needs to be cared for.

But you quickly realize that this is completely foreign to you. How do you raise a child? You know nothing of parenting. You're currently married to your work. Becoming a single mother was not part of the plan.

You manage to bring her up on your own, consulting what few sources you have. You used to be quite social, but lately you've been more detached from society. You can’t explain her. You’ve always had your work to keep you company, your own interests and hobbies, but you’re lonely and an infant is hardly company. You take up drinking more than you used to.

On some nights after a few glasses of wine you simply watch her sleep. Her hair is so pale, a blonde that’s almost white, remarkably similar to yours. Sometimes you forget you’re not her real mother. Sometimes you wonder who is.

She’s smart for her age. (Maybe she takes after you, but no, for all your genius she’s more sober – no pun intended – and down to earth than you were as a child.) It’s not long before you’ve taught her the alphabet, and once she’s able to read by herself she’s fascinated by words. Her tastes steadily grow from children’s books to nonfiction of any sort. You are a little unnerved when she finally settles upon horror stories and tales of dark creatures. You may have a flare for fantasy, but she lives in a world not of magic and enchantment but of psychological terrors.

In fact, she shares few, if any, of your interests. You try to pick up on what she likes and to reach out to her, but she is secretive and suspicious and regards your offers with doubt. You must be reading her wrong, and you're hardly surprised; you can’t fathom what goes through her mind. You’re on different wavelengths.

Even once she can read and write, when her literary tastes surpass your own and she speaks to you on almost level terms, you don’t know how to take care of her. It’s even harder now than it used to be. At least when she was a baby she required no more than food and shelter and arms to hold her. Now she requires intellectual stimulation and a delicate balance of attention and freedom that you can never quite seem to find.

Sometimes she doesn’t want you around. The rational, scientific part of your brain tells you it’s a natural reaction. She’s a preteen child, one who grew up with little human contact except for you, her confused and busy mother. The rest of your brain doesn’t understand it and it makes you feel like you have failed her. You drink when you think you’re alone.

You fear that you have done something terribly wrong. You’ve raised a child who doesn’t know how to trust, who's always looking for hidden motives, who's afraid to confront her own emotions. You should have told her you loved her more – no, you should have disciplined her more, she’s too headstrong – no, you shouldn’t have tried so hard to involve yourself in her life – no, you should’ve tried harder to find common ground –

When you first picked her up and gazed into those violet eyes, the hue of which have since never failed to leave you in awe, you had no idea how to raise her. You still don’t, and she doesn’t even need you anymore.

But for all her sass and sarcasm she’s grown into a beautiful young woman, intelligent and capable and charming in her own right, and as you stare into the eyes of the dog-demon all you can think about is your lovely daughter. You wonder where she is. You wonder if she knows. You wonder if she cares.

This may be the end of your story, but you have played your part, and somehow you don’t think you’ve failed.

Rose will make it through, and that’s all that matters.


	8. Kick in the Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #58  
> John/Rose

There’s something suspicious about the way John is outside Rose’s door when she reaches the top of the stairs.

Had Rose not been paying closer attention, she would have assumed he simply was walking down the hall to the staircase and happened to be passing her room when she saw him. He notices her and smiles. She narrows her eyes.

“What are you doing, John?”

“Huh?” He stops walking a few steps in front of her. “What do you mean?”

“I thought the question was rather self-explanatory.”

“Well duh, I know what the words mean. I mean why are you asking?”

“Perhaps because I’m curious as to what you’ve been up to today.” She quirks one eyebrow, watches him roll his eyes, glances at her room. The door is cracked open a bit farther than she remembers leaving it.

He shrugs and relents. “Not much, I guess.”

“Planning any pranks?”

His eyes widen. “No, I, uh… well, yeah actually, I’ve been thinking about it… how –”

“You only grin like that when you’re waiting for someone to stumble blindly into one of your infamous traps. It’s telling.”

It’s not, actually; he’s learned to conceal his mischievousness well enough that she can barely tell.

“Wow, I didn’t notice,” he says with a chuckle, raising one hand to scratch his head and then letting it fall again. “Well, you got me! Things have been kind of boring lately, so I was thinking of ways to spice things up. With some… new prank or something.”

He’s on the right track, but he’s not as good of a liar as she is.

Rose says, “Ah. And who might the unfortunate victim be this time?”

The answer takes a moment too long. “I don’t know, actually. I feel like I’ve already gotten everyone so many times it’s not really fair anymore, you know?”

“I don’t recall you ever successfully ensnaring me in one of your shenanigans.”

He shoves his hands in his pockets and almost scoffs. “Oh please, I got you with the bucket-of-water-on-the-door trick _years_  ago. You’re not exempt just because you know twenty-seven different words for ‘prank.’”

Rose glances at her door again and then meets his eyes levelly. “That was once, and, as you state, years ago. It’s a paltry victory compared to the salt-spiked tea you offered me last month which I didn’t drink, or the note from my mother that you feigned and which I promptly returned to the recycling, or –”

“All right, all right, jeez!” He rolls his eyes again and then focuses them on the wall. “What’s even your point?”

“Merely to combat the notion that your title of ‘pranking master,’ as you put it, is undisputed. You have yet to rout the enemy,” she says casually, beginning to walk towards him.

A few moments before, his eyebrows had been lowered in a fashion that rather reminded Rose of a resentful child. Now, as he turns back to her and follows her movement, they rise incredulously. “What,  _you_? Are you going to challenge me for it?”

She shrugs noncommittally. “I could.”

“But… why?” She stands directly in front of him now; his hands come out of his pockets to hang at his sides. “You don’t even care about pranking.”

He watches her arms as she slides them over his shoulders. “How do you know?”

“Well…” There's color rising in his cheeks. “I’ve been doing it for years and you never, like, got involved or anything… seriously, you have the lowest prankster’s gambit I know.”

“Do I?” She thinks the way his gaze keep flickering between her eyes and her mouth ought to count as a victory in and of itself. “Who’s counting?”

“I… am…” The closer her face comes to his, the less he seems to breathe. He probably doesn’t realize he’s leaning in almost as much as she is.

“You,” she murmurs, and his mouth twitches at the feel of her breath on his lips, “might be a little biased.”

“What, you th–” 

He doesn’t get a chance to finish, but he doesn’t seem to mind. As soon as their lips meet he wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her closer. She’s acutely aware of the positions of their feet, where their legs touch, his torso pressed against hers, and for a moment she loses herself in it.

Trying to split her attention between her mouth and her feet, she takes one small, fumbling step forward. John predictably moves back to keep their balance. If Rose’s lips weren’t otherwise occupied she would smirk.

Step by step she manages to back him up. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything – not that he can, really, when he’s putting his tongue to other uses. Rose’s hands, still extended over his shoulders, touch something smooth and wooden behind him. Excellent.

One hand pulls back a little to rest against his head, running through his hair and earning a pleased noise from deep within his throat. It makes Rose temporarily forget what she’s doing. There’s no space between them and she can feel the heat from his body and one of his hands is snaking up her neck now and oh god why is she making an effort to end this? 

But her other hand still brushes the door and, gathering her senses, in one motion she disentangles herself from him and nudges the door backwards. He doesn’t even get to open his eyes before the bucket comes down on him, spilling neatly all over his head and bouncing off his shoulder.

The clanging replays in Rose's mind in the silence that follows. Rose attempts to brush a few stray drops of water from the front of her dress. John stands huddled in on himself slightly, still dripping, eyes still shut.

Slowly he removes his glasses and rubs the back of a (thankfully still dry) hand across his eyes. When he opens them, Rose is standing in front of him, hands folded behind her back innocently, face impassive.

“What were you saying?” she asks. “I’m afraid I wasn’t really listening.”

“Oh my god, Rose. I cannot believe you.” Water is dripping from his hair down his face.

“You can’t believe  _me_ , or how high my gambit is now?”

“Do you know what you’ve started?”

“I apologize if this is difficult for you to take in. I know a pranking master such as yourself is unaccustomed to such a drastic state of humiliation. And at the hands of his girlfriend, no less.”

He raises one hand to point at her. “This is WAR, Rose. I will not sleep until I’ve out-pranked you so hard you’ll beg for mercy from my pranking onslaught. And then I will drop a bucket of water on your head as PAYBACK.”

“Hubris has been the fall of many heroes, John. Perhaps you should wait to pen your victory speech until you have at least one win under your metaphorical belt.” She glances down at his clothes and then back up to his eyes, not bothering to conceal a smirk. “And you’re a little less soaking wet.”

“Ugh, I’m going to go change clothes.”

He marches past her down the hallway, still dripping slightly.

“Be careful going out the front door,” Rose says.

John stops in his tracks, turns his head around just far enough to give her A Look, and continues down the stairs.

A moment after he’s gone, Rose gingerly steps over the wet spot in the carpet and shuts her door.

She’s got a lot of planning to do. It's going to be a long war.


	9. Do Not Disturb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #63

EB: hey rose!   
EB: wow, it feels like we haven’t talked in a while.   
EB: have you been busy?   
EB: ...ok, i’m guessing so.   
EB: rose?   
EB: are you there???   
EB: come on, it’s been like half an hour.   
EB: and you weren’t here yesterday either.   
EB: augh.   
EB: well, i have to go.   
EB: catch you later!   
EB: hopefully.

TG: so yesterday i was going through that psychobullshit website you linked me to  
TG: just for shiggles  
TG: guess how many of the symptoms apply to me  
TG: yep thats right all of them  
TG: you win looks like im secretly a closet case of aspd ocd ptsd complex or whatever that was actually about  
TG: crickets chirp  
TG: wow lalonde not even a victorious chuckle  
TG: or a sardonic pretentious grin  
TG: you got words to spare cant you lay some on me  
TG: tell me how my total inability to care about this is obviously psychologically representative of a deeper problem or some shit  
TG: youre cold lalonde  
TG: cold  
TG: im freezing to death over here  
TG: fingers turning blue think im gonna have to amputate  
TG: fine leave me to chew off my own limbs in this icy cave of cold shoulder stalagmites threatening to fall and pierce me through my broken heart  
TG: or are those stalactites  
TG: whatever not the point  
TG: this yukon heros coming to a tragic end under your blanket of fluffy white indifference  
TG: hope youre happy 

GG: rose!!!  
GG: i just discovered something i think you will find very exciting :)  
GG: rose?  
GG: oh i guess youre not at your computer?  
GG: well just message me when you get back! i can wait :)  
GG: ummm rose??  
GG: i know i said i can wait, but not this long...  
GG: ok i have to go now, but message me when you get online!

EB: rose?  
EB: are you here this time?  
EB: rose this is getting kind of creepy.  
EB: i mean i know you get caught up in your schoolwork and gothic monsters and what not.  
EB: but you usually, you know, eventually reply when your friends are trying to talk to you.  
EB: ...wow, that sounded a little passive aggressive, didn’t it.  
EB: not trying to steal your thunder!  
EB: i guess all i’m saying is...  
EB: we are getting kind of worried!  
EB: you’ve been kind of... distant for the last few days.  
EB: if something’s wrong you can always talk to me about it.  
EB: and if not it would just be nice to know you’re ok.  
EB: ok?  
EB: :/

TG: lalonde did you forget to pay the electricity bill again  
TG: or is this one of your fabled new york storms  
TG: the ones that knock out the power and flood the basement and catch the forest on fire and all that shit  
TG: nope weather.com says its just raining where you live  
TG: like every other goddamn day  
TG: did you get kidnapped from your computer and the douche that bound and gagged you didnt even have the decency to sign you out before throwing you in the trunk  
TG: maybe its not even you signed into this account maybe its some alien impersonating you who doesnt speak english  
TG: is that it have you turned into one of your eldritch terrors and forgotten how to type  
TG: its not hard just slam your slimy black tentacle on the keyboard  
TG: like this  
TG: gnbfrv  
TG: see english aint hard any chimpanzee could knock out a shakespeare sonnet  
TG: okay now i know youre not here youd never let that one slide without a withering retort  
TG: goddamn it lalonde will you just answer your ims or your phone or something  
TG: egberts gonna have a panic attack he swears youre dead  
TG: will you come prove him wrong so hell get off my back  
TG: that was not some sort of homoerotic freudian slip by the way  
TG: and if you take it that way tables are gonna get flipped  
TG: kthxbye

GG: rose youve seemed really distracted lately........  
GG: youre not talking to us as much and when you do youre “working on other things” :(  
GG: is it schoolwork?  
GG: whats going on???  
GG: i mean its fine if youve got other stuff to do, but were just afraid somethings wrong!  
GG: weve hardly seen you for three or four days!  
GG: were all really worried  
GG: even dave in his weird coolkid way  
GG: i hope were not annoying you or anything but we just dont want you to drift away from us :(  
  

\--

You set down your pencil and turn your wrist in a circle, stretching it out. Long periods of writing are not unfamiliar to you but this challenge has had you working at it harder than usual. Entire pages of prose in purple and black ink have been added to your notebook in the last few hours.

Oh. Maybe more than a few hours. As you glance up you realize your room is actually quite dark. When you arrived home from school you went straight to writing, utilizing the light from a sun that has now fallen behind the trees. You didn’t notice that turning on the lamp might have helped.

Somewhere underneath your scraps of paper and extra pens is your computer, pushed to the side and abandoned almost as soon as it was turned on. You know you could write faster if you used a word processor but you prefer the feel of writing on paper, letting the flow of the pen on the page draw you in. It seems to work, if your intent focus up until now is any indication.

Removing your supplies, you open the laptop and turn down the screen brightness so the harsh backlight doesn’t hurt your eyes, still adjusted to your dark room. You wouldn’t want to damage your excellent vision, after all, when you wind up staring at three walls of bright blue and red and green text.

Dammit, you left yourself logged in  _again_.

Immediately you grab for your phone from the edge of your desk. You put it on silent this morning and have hardly looked at it since; quiet is as important while you work as it is in school. It’s not surprising you had forgotten it was there.

Five new messages, two missed calls.

You sigh and click your pesterchum window.

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] –-

TT: John.  
EB: rose!!!  
EB: oh thank god, we were beginning to think something bad had happened to you.  
TT: So I’ve heard.  
TT: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shove you all under the rug for so long.  
EB: what happened?  
EB: you were barely online yesterday, or the day before, and now today too!  
TT: Nothing bad, I assure you.  
TT: Simply a side effect of the time of year.  
EB: winter?  
EB: is there something wrong with your internet?  
TT: Actually it’s not winter yet, but no.  
TT: The month.  
EB: oh.  
EB: november?  
TT: Yes.

Perhaps, in retrospect, you should have told your friends about National Novel Writing Month before it began.


	10. Abandoned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #38

Rose is the one who goes to find John. You’re frantically trying to find a way, any way at all, to get Jade into the game, but there is nothing. It might already be too late.

You’re not sure how Rose got to the Land of Wind and Shade so fast, but you suspect it had something to do with magic and a total disregard for how the gate system is supposed to work. Jade isn’t answering you, and in your expertly-concealed chill-as-fuck anxiousness you badger your client instead.

TG: rose  
TG: are you there yet  
TG: tell me when you get there  
TG: i want  
TG: i need to know what you find

TT: I found the denizen’s lair.  
TG: and  
TG: did you find him  
TT: ...  
TT: No.  
TG: what  
TG: he has to be there thats where he went  
TT: Dave.  
TT: He hasn’t been responding to our messages for quite some time.  
TT: We were both aware of the implications.  
TG: yeah but  
TG: the point of going was to find him and make sure  
TT: I’ve made sure.  
TT: I have his glasses.  
TG: just his glasses  
TT: They’re broken.  
TG: thats not proof of anything  
TT: There’s blood on them.  
TG: no  
TT: I’m going back to LOLAR.  
TG: no no no  
TG: there has to be something else  
TG: youve gotta find him rose  
TG: maybe hes still there  
TG: stumbling around blind as shit without those dorky frames  
TG: maybe thats why hes not replying  
TG: find him rose we need him  
TG: we need jade  
TG: we need

The words have been accelerating of their own accord, just like your heartbeat, but Rose doesn’t reply. Your mouth is dry and there’s a frozen feeling in your stomach. Rose knows what she’s doing. If she’s leaving then she’s come to a solid conclusion.

Rose is good at resigning herself to inevitable outcomes. You're not.

TG: jade come on are you there  
TG: answer me  
TG: we still have a chance  
TG: rose is on lowas maybe she can get egberts server disk now  
TG: jade  
TG: goddammit say something  
TG: jade  
TG: jesus christ i talk and scream and no one answers  
TG: its like im in some arctic tundra surrounded by all this snow that just doesnt give a shit  
TG: its an aerial shot of all this fucking snow and then just me in the middle  
TG: no footprints anywhere  
TG: not even an echo  
TG: just me  
TG: the only man left in the world

It hurts because you're coming to realize now that it's true. You stare unblinkingly at three text screens that don’t change but that you don’t have the heart to close.

John is dead.

Jade is gone.

It’s just you and Rose.

The game was over before it began.

 

\--

 

You don’t want to do anything. You want to lie on the floor and curl up and close your eyes and pretend it didn’t happen, pretend when you wake up Bro will attack you like the shitty puppet ninja he is and John will thank you for the awesome gift you just sent him and Jade will ramble more of her crazy future BS at you and they’ll all be  _alive_  and you’ll all be happy.

As far as you’re concerned, you have no future. You’re uniquely qualified to recognize when time has stopped, and it has.

Rose wants to do everything. She spends hours in dimly-lit turtle libraries looking for answers until she falls asleep on open pages. She digs up old ancient treasures that look like useless junk to you and deciphers writing on cave walls and mumbles riddles to herself while searching for hidden areas in your two lands. (She rarely ventures to LOWAS.) You wonder what she’s going to do when she runs out of places to explore. Most of her land is already in ruins, and her “looking for answers” looks suspiciously like taking her anger out on poor unsuspecting mountains.

It’s not a healthy way to grieve, you’re certain, but you don’t think there is a healthy way anymore.

 

\--

 

At first you spend a lot of time around your house, or what’s left of it. Lethargically you use up your grist alchemizing new items, sometimes not even aware of what you combined until you look at the product. When you run out of grist it’s not hard to go out and find some imps to destroy. No matter how many you kill they just keep coming back, and soon you’re practiced enough to take them out five at a time.

Sometimes the crowsprite follows you around, cawing and staring blankly at you when you try to talk to it. The noise is the more obnoxious to your ears because it refuses to help you. You think maybe it’s because you stabbed it through the chest, but you also brought it back to life as an awesome ghost NPC, so you don’t see what the big deal is.

Rose tells you to prototype it again; you’ve got nothing to lose. You spend a while looking around your apartment, deciding what would make the best crow-hybrid sidekick, but in the end the choice is hardly yours. The seppucrow keeps going back to Li’l Cal.

It makes sense, you guess; Cal’s probably the most human-esque thing you could prototype and hey, if Rose’s cat can talk as a sprite, maybe Cal can too. But at the same time that puppet is fucking  _creepy_  and you’re not sure you want its impaled ghost staring at you all the time.

You take a quick look into the future for help and are a bit disappointed to find out it’s what you’re going to do anyway, so you shrug and toss Cal in. The kernel flashes, and when the light dies down enough for you to look at it, well look at that, Cal with wings.

“Hey Li’l Cal,” you say as a test.

For a moment it’s silent. Then –

_Haa haa hee hee hoo hoo_

“Uh.” You wait for the laughter to subside. He’s probably just messing with you. It’s his thing.

But the laughter  _doesn’t_  subside, ever. Now instead of ear-splitting cawing you’ve got this ridiculous (and kind of unnerving) chuckling, and even though Calsprite is more willing to fight alongside you and help you out, you kind of wish he wasn’t.

Why couldn’t you just have a dead cat to prototype?

 

\--

 

Eventually you realize that you’re going to have to sleep, and keeping yourself awake until your eyes close of their own accord isn’t cutting it anymore. You rendezvous at Rose’s house and she sets up a bed for you on the floor of her room with a number of blankets and pillows disproportionate to how unwelcoming the mansion looks.

Sleep doesn’t come easily to either of you, but you suppose you drifted off at some point, because when you wake up it’s been hours. The curtain can’t quite block out the perpetual noon sun and in the dim pastel light you can see Rose in her bed, still asleep. One hand is curled around something; you scoot a little closer and realize it’s the empty frames of John’s glasses.

Something twists in your chest that makes you want to cry. You lie back down and listen to the endless rain.

 

\--

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] --

TG: hey troll  
TG: remember when you were all up in our grills  
TG: all this alien fatalism futuretelling bullshit that was so obviously fake and a ploy for my precious attention  
TG: you wanna do that again sometime  
TG: been a while since we talked  
TG: since any of us talked to any of you i guess  
TG: well  
TG: either of us i mean  
TG: whyd you quit  
TG: i mean i know you were always saying we were doomed  
TG: but why wait until now to rub it in by disappearing  
TG: i thought you wanted to see if you could change things  
TG: or was fucking killing my best friend enough payback for you and now youre done with us  
TG: ok sorry maybe that was uncalled for  
TG: you can jump in anytime you know  
TG: or not whatever  
TG: shoot me a message when you feel like not abandoning us to this fucking nightmare  
TG: ill be here  
TG: nowhere else to go

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] --

 

\--

 

Once, you fall asleep to silence and wake up to music. Everything is dark, pitch black, as if you’ve been blindfolded, but you’re dimly aware of a faint rhythm in your ears. At first you think it might be your heartbeat, but it’s too complicated – it grows, takes form into a drumbeat you know, joins another track of electronic pitches and you know this song. You wrote it.

When you open your eyes all you see is red. You have to pull your shades away from your face to rub your eyes; nothing changes. It looks just like your room but in a monochromatic color scheme that clashes with your violet pajamas.

The music is still playing and you realize that you’re wearing your headphones. Not only that, you’re standing in front of your turntables. You don’t remember moving over here (or putting on these ironic purple duds or spilling red paint everywhere), but you start to understand, as if you’re recalling a dream.

A dream. This is the dream world. You’re asleep, but you’ve been awake for quite a while.

The window affords an excellent view of a violet city; the black specks must be people, you think, though not people of a sort you’ve ever seen before. None of the buildings are nearly as tall as yours, and across the empty space is a tower. You somehow know that it mirrors your own and you don’t have to guess who’s in it.

At this point you’re not shocked to find yourself levitating, and you swing over the windowsill as if hopping a low fence. The sky is unnaturally black above you, the city below somehow visible without light.

You can see in the other window before you reach it. Rose is asleep on her bed, face impassive, looking as if she’s lain there for years and years, untouched. It almost seems a crime to enter, but then you notice the glowing letters already defacing the walls, nonsense scribbled from floor to ceiling.

Climbing in the window makes you feel like a fairy tale prince. The prince of the moon, here to wake the princess, both of you in matching ridiculous purple getups. (It looks better on her, you think.) Except that you flew in the window rather than climbed up the tower. It takes some of the heroism out of it.

Sleeping beauty doesn’t stir as you walk over to her bedside. For a moment you actually consider waking her with a kiss, but then the realization that that could end up all kinds of awkward hits you. Maybe you should unceremoniously dump her out of bed and see if that works. Or maybe draw on her face first. She’d be charming with a mustache.

In the end you settle for shaking her shoulder.

“Rose. Hey.”

She doesn’t move.

“Come on, Rose. Wake up.”

Her eyes twitch; that’s all.

“Your knight in shining aubergine pajamas has arrived. Open your eyes.”

But she doesn’t move. You lightly slap her face and tickle her feet and everything and by the time you wake up on LOHAC she’s still asleep on Derse.

Of course the next time you talk you tell her, describing the giant purple towers and weirdly dark sky and your awesome dream rooms. She asks how you woke up and you tell her you didn’t, really; you were never asleep. That takes some explanation but when you part again she says she’ll try harder to wake up.

Apparently she’s not trying hard enough, because the next few times you sleep she’s comatose as ever. Even when your realselves are only a few feet apart, she continues to have (relatively) normal dreams while you’re alone on Derse. You spend most of your time wandering around her room, sneaking peeks at her journals (mostly gibberish and MEOWs; weird kid), and making enough noise to bother the Dersites in the streets.

One night you’re sitting on the floor leaning against the side of her bed when you hear muttering. You look around, but of course it’s just the two of you; when you stand up, she’s still asleep, lips slightly parted.

After a moment you raise a hand and pinch her nose between your thumb and forefinger. Her eyebrows twitch, she murmurs something else unintelligible, and you consider rescinding your hand, because you just want to wake her up, not suffocate her.

But then her arm stirs and she swats your hand away, rasping, “What the hell, Dave.”

You move back as she sits up, blinks blearily, and looks up at you.

“Nice of you to finally join me,” you say. “Welcome to Dreamland. I’ll be your host for this evening.”

“Was that really necessary?”

Wow, not even so much as a  _good morning_  or  _how are you_  or  _thank you for saving me from my eternal slumber, hero of time_.

“It woke you up, didn’t it?”

Fully awake now, she slides off the bed and walks to the window. In a moment you follow.

You hope her real self is tired, because it looks like you’ve got a lot of exploring to do.

 

\--

 

Seven billion people are dead, and all you can think about are three of them. Why did John have to be so stupid, so trusting and honest and friendly and wonderful and blind? Why did Jade have to suffer the consequences when she hadn’t even gotten to play the game? You don’t even know if she’s dead. What if she’s all alone on a post-apocalyptic earth? What if she has it worse than you? And what happened to Bro, anyway? Is he alive? Is he even here?

The answers never come so the questions never stop. When you leap from gear to gear on LOHAC, you’re imagining the sidewalks of Houston in the same color; sometimes your feet land so close to the edge the rippling lava nearly laps at your heels, and you don’t think you’d care if you accidentally fell in. When you wander the streets of Derse you wonder if anything remotely like this is left standing on earth.

Things were so much easier before you woke up, you think. When you slept you actually slept, not just relocated your tired brain somewhere darker and even lonelier for all the people surrounding you.

Sometimes when you and Rose sleep at her house, you meet together on Derse, too. She’s thrilled that even her time asleep can be put to productive use exploring your dream world, but more than once you find her outside her tower simply gazing at the sky as if in a trance; you have to tug on her arm to get her to notice you. No amount of curiosity about what transfixes her, no amount of her coercions and rationalizations will get you to listen to the Horrorterrors that she tells you about, both asleep and awake.

When you go out you keep your gaze downwards. The headphones and sunglasses never leave your head.

 

\--

 

There’s a day (if there’s such a thing as days anymore) that you decide to meet up on LOHAC. You’ve been spending a lot of time apart lately, always with your IM windows open, but it hardly replaces actual contact. Now that you’re the last two humans in existence (you don’t care if you really are or not, you feel like you are) you need to reassure yourself every once in a while that you’re really still there.

You get to the meeting point before Rose does and wait, tapping your foot to a steady beat. You wish you could complain that she’s late, but it’s not as if you don’t have all the time in the world.

When she arrives she’s wearing that long black dress with the pink shirt underneath and already starting to sweat. The heat is oppressive here and you’re constantly pulling at your suit collar, but you both always refuse to change clothes. You’re not sure if you just don’t care about your comfort anymore or it’s one of those games of one-upmanship that are practically instinctual to you both. We’re going to sit in this sauna and turn up the temperature until we're being goddamn cooked alive. First one to pass out loses. Can’t stand the heat, get off my planet.

“’Sup.”

“My most recent research has yielded some information that I believe you’ll be very interested to hear.”

The way she says it makes it sound as if she’s been sitting in a school library jotting down notes for her next essay. Actually, you wouldn’t be surprised if she’s been compiling reports all this time. A last testament to your existence, a record of your futile efforts for all of non-existent posterity to never read.

“Aren’t I always interested to hear what new sultry secrets the tentacreeps whisper in your ear at night?”

“It’s not from the Furthest Ring this time. It appears to be a requirement of this game that its players are created during the course of the session. We were literally bred for this game, Dave.”

She probably can’t see your eyes narrow slightly behind your shades. “What, like, now? We’re thirteen. Game’s a little off.”

“Game’s more than a little off,” she scoffs. “But not in this particular case. You should know better than anyone what time travel can do. We were to be created during the session and sent back to our home world to await its commencement.”

“Created? Were to be?”

“Well, the ectobiological process has to have been performed by one of us, and seeing as neither of us has access to the technology required, I’m left to conclude that this is something that takes place in a different timeline.”

You look out across the lava, broken only by charred gears and bits of black framework. “Then we were never even born in this timeline. That’s fucked up.”

“And it’s not all. Due to the specifics of the creation process, we were created in pairs. Two pairs of children from two sets of combined DNA.”

Your next intake of breath is a little sharper than you intended. “We’re...”

“We’re siblings, Dave.”

For a few moments you merely study each other. It hadn’t escaped your notice that your hair is almost the same pale shade, your thin, bony bodies are somewhat reminiscent of each other’s, your eyes have that same unnatural quality to them. You have no parents to speak of and she has never been able to coerce her mother into talking about her father. If you ever wondered what it would be like to have a sister, you couldn’t have imagined anyone but her.

You wonder how long she’s known.

“J...” She chokes on the word so quickly that you can’t even tell which name she meant. “...They were, too.”

You’ve seen pictures of both of them, of course. Black hair, buck teeth, bad eyesight. Same goofy smile. It makes perfect sense. Why didn’t you realize sooner?

Suddenly you have nothing to say. You feel like you should be looking at her in a new light, but she’s the same Rose you’ve always known, watching you with the same unreadable, scrutinizing expression.

So the conversation drifts to other things for a bit and then she takes her leave like usual, off to somewhere that doesn’t feel like an oven while you continue to screw around on LOHAC, slinging your suit jacket over your shoulder and kicking bits of metal into the lava. As they hiss and turn into steam you try not to remember all the times you sort-of-not-really found her attractive and decide you like her better as a sister anyway.

You’re kind of just glad you get to be a brother again.

 

\--

_Haa haa hoo hee haa hee hee hoo hee hoo hoo haa_

Your teeth grind together as you slash another imp in two. Some of the grist lands on a gear easily within leaping distance, but you don’t pick it up. There’s not even a point.

_Hee hee hoo hoo haa hee haa hoo hoo_

For a brief moment you cover your ears, but then you have to swing your sword down again to block an attack on your right side. These imps aren’t even a challenge, just an annoyance.

_Hoo hoo haa hee haa_

An annoyance. A cackling sprite and the whirring of gears and

“Shut up.”

_Hee hee hoo hoo_

the hissing of lava and

“Stop.”

_Haa hoo haa hee hee_

the screams and growls of imps and

“Shut the hell up!”

_Hee hee hee_

the ticking, the godforsaken never-ending  _ticking_. You throw down your sword, whip out your timetables, and stop yourself just in time.

You already decided not to time-travel unless you absolutely have to. It’s too hard trying to keep the loops stable, and there’s little point to it, anyway. Nothing ever changes no matter how far forward you go.

Of course things will change if you go back far enough. You finger the tops of the timetables. Then you think of Rose, and put them away.

Not yet.

 

\--

 

It’s not uncommon for you to fall out of touch with Rose for stretches of time. The longest so far has been two days, fourteen hours, thirty-five minutes, and twelve seconds.

That record just got beat, and you pretend not to notice as its lead steadily grows. If that record was a race, the new winner is outstripping the old one at a breakneck pace. It’s leaving it behind in the dust.

Fifteen hours. You pester her.

Eighteen hours. She still hasn’t replied.

Three days. Neither hide nor hair.

After three days, four hours, fifty-eight minutes, and two seconds, you take matters into your own hands and go to her house. The short trek between the gate and her door leaves you soaked, and you’re glad to step into the vast entrance hall, where the light doesn’t blind you even behind your shades.

You don’t even have to wait for the white spots in your vision to fade to know what’s wrong. The house had slowly lost its incessant alcohol smell once her mom had been missing for months, but it’s back.

You find her in the kitchen, sitting in disarray on the tiled floor with her head leaning back against the cabinets. Her eyes are closed and her clothes are dirty and her hair looks like it hasn’t been washed in half a week. You know Rose has a tendency to ignore personal hygiene requirements when she’s overly-invested in things, but not like this.

There are empty bottles of vodka on the counter, next to but fresher than the ones her mother left, and a half empty one on the floor just out of reach of her hand, and another one broken beneath an open cupboard door, the alcohol stagnant on the tiles and shards of broken glass.

Your wet shoes squeak as you walk over to her and kneel down. She doesn’t open her eyes. You grab her arm.

“It tastes fucking awful,” she rasps.

“God, Rose,” you whisper, and try to slide an arm underneath her. She shifts in protest and you let her attempt to stand up. Her arms are nearly useless; you have to drag her to her feet and hold her while she steadies herself. Her breath reeks of gin and vodka and for a moment you want to just finish off all these bottles yourself and join her.

With her arm around your shoulders and yours around her ribs, you’re carrying her more than she’s walking for herself, but somehow you get her up the stairs and into her room. As she collapses onto her bed, she says, “Dave, why...”

You wait for the end of the sentence, but she doesn’t continue. It’s just as well; you don’t think you can speak. Between the smell of alcohol and the question and how much of a fucking  _mess_  she is, you suddenly feel like throwing up. You’re surprised she hasn’t yet and the realization that this is probably not the first time she's been in the alcohol cabinets makes your own throat burn.

She passes out before you get her blanket over her, and you step back out into the hall. An open door catches your attention, leading to a room you’ve never seen before. There’s a dresser, a mirror, a curtained window, a closet left open and a bed cluttered with boxes. You look into the nearest one to see a jumble of what looks like baby clothes, and the one next to it contains a pile of photographs; one is lying next to the box and you pick it up.

You’ve never seen Ms. Lalonde, but somehow you know this is her, and the baby she’s holding so fondly must be Rose.

You let the photo fall back to the bed and return to Rose’s room, where your temporary bed (now just a tangle of pillows and blankets) is still on her floor. You think you need to be here when she wakes up.

 

\--

 

Once the decision is made, it’s hard to stop thinking about it.

You promised Rose you won’t leave until you’ve gathered as much information as you can. It wouldn’t make sense to go now, really; as much as every part of you aches to leave this abyss of empty time, it won’t solve anything if you can’t change anything. You don’t know that simply telling John not to be such an idiot will be enough to keep you from getting yourselves killed later on.

(And still you wonder if, in some other timeline, you haven’t already done it. Maybe there are yous more doomed than you, maybe yous more reckless. Maybe more stupid. Who’s to say it would be so bad to be one of them?)

So you accompany Rose on her ridiculous treks across three globes and nod while she explains her findings. You familiarize yourself with the game constructs, the places, the levels, the enemies until you’re a veritable Sburb walkthrough. You build your way to the gates (the right way, none of this jetpack shortcut bullshit) and get a feel for the bosses, yours and Rose’s and John’s.

You beat the lower level ones, sometimes alone, sometimes together. You pick up items and bonuses and snag new weapons and keep everything that might be useful. You ascertain that John was out of his naïve little mind to even  _think_  about taking on his final boss alone within the first few hours. One look at yours conjures terrible mental images of what happened to him.

(Sometimes you finger the hilt of your sword and think about trying it, yours or his, just to see, but Rose all but commands you not to go near those gates. You remember the bunny she knitted for him as a birthday present that's still sitting on her desk, and you don't argue.)

You spend days together and then days apart. Sometimes you don’t fight, don’t explore, just sit on the charred bars of the towers on LOHAC with your legs dangling over the lava and listen to the heat hiss around you. It’s easy, like this, to imagine that it’s just you. John and Jade and Bro have been gone for so long that their memories are only dull aches. The trolls have been offline for such a long time that you hardly think about them anymore. Life before Sburb is like a dream, and the more time you spend awake the more of it you forget.

Rose makes you remember. She’s different now, of course, and it makes you wonder how different you are too. But somehow despite the circumstances there’s still that wry humor in her grammatically-immaculate text and you can pretend, for just a few seconds, that nothing’s changed.

You wonder how things would have been if you’d been allowed to meet on earth, within the confines of your old lives, just normal internet friends getting together for the first time instead of the fucked-up ecto-twins you are now. Probably a lot more standoffish and snarky. None of this sitting side by side on the beach on LOLAR, not caring that she can see your eyes through your shades, just talking without all those walls of irony and pride and defensiveness.

She needs this, you think. It’s not like her to seek comfort at all, and it’s not like you either, but you can read her better than she’d like to admit. You’ll be her knight if you have to.

But she can read you better than you’d like to admit, too, and somehow she draws you out of your self-proclaimed role of aloof protector and gets you to talk almost as much as she does. It’s in these moments, when her shoulder is pressed against yours and she’s just listening, sincerely listening, that you realize you’re leaning on her as much as she’s leaning on you.

As selfish as it is to wish this hellish dead end on anyone, you’re glad she’s here. When she smiles at you – hardly a twitch of the lips but an honest, heartfelt thing – you smile back.

 

\--

 

You’ve lost track of the time.

It’s ironic –  _really_  ironic, in the English class sense of the word – that you, you who is acutely aware of each passing second, who can hop and skip along the timeline with a twitch of your fingers, has forgotten what day it is.

For all you know (for all you care) it’s still Monday, April 13, 2009. That’s what the calendars still say. The sun doesn’t set (is there even a sun anymore?), the phases of the moon don’t change (is there a moon?). It might as well be the same day, endless, stretching into weeks, months.

Has it been months, or does it only feel that way because you’ve been messing with the timelines? Rose seems surprised when you suggest it and for a moment you doubt yourself, your estimation, your role (but that stupid title never meant anything anyway, did it).

But however long it’s been it’s been long  _enough_. Every time Calsprite laughs is another three years off your life. You might have gray hairs already. What used to be a reassuring (if obnoxious) familiar face, a reminder of a safer time, now just rubs in that your brother is gone and never coming back, just like everything else.

You can’t take it anymore. You’re done. It’s time to fix things.

As soon as you tell Rose you’re leaving you become anxious that she might convince you to stay. There’s a quiet uneasiness in her words that undermines your decision, but you’re resolved. You try to assuage her unspoken fears and don’t object when she subtly draws out the conversation at each turn.

TT: If my past self can wake up sooner, maybe I’ll be the one to visit you first this time.  
TT: I’ll fly by and remind you you’re already awake and don’t know it.

The scene plays out in your mind, Rose at your window, pulling you out of your waking stupor. It took so long this time. Your dreams were dark and disturbing, and even when they shifted to your dreamself you were awake on Derse alone most of the time, averting your eyes from the sky. It would be nice to have her find you first this ti—

But then you remember that it won’t be you. It might not even be her. You can go back in time, but you’re not Alpha Dave and you never will be. The realization leaves a bitter taste in the back of your mouth.

TG: yeah thatd be cool i guess

There’s not really anything else to say. Honestly, you’re surprised you’re not sick of her yet. For months you’ve had no one else in the world to talk to. All the text that flashes on your screen is purple; the only real voice you’ve heard in weeks is hers. The only hand that’s brushed yours when you felt you couldn’t go on. Suddenly you’re not sure how to do this and your next sentence seems awkwardly out of place.

TG: im gonna go now

You grasp for something more. What’s the proper way to bid farewell to your ectosister when you’re abandoning her in a doomed timeline to change the past? Will these be the last words she ever hears from a friend? You try to remember the last time you met up in person; it was the last time ever and you didn’t even know.

Still, you’re kind of glad you’re not together right now. You’re not sure you could do this if you were.

The cursor blinks in an empty text box. You can’t bring yourself to say goodbye; it’s too final, too formal.

TT: Good luck.

But she understands, and that’s all you need. You try not to think about her here, alone, as you put your hands on your records. You’re both sacrificing something; hell, you’ve both sacrificed everything already. You’re doing it to save them, and as unbearable as the past few months have been, you think you’d do it all again if that’s what it took.

You take a deep breath and spin, and the world changes.


	11. No Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #24  
> Rose/Kanaya

“Maybe later,” she says.

Kanaya’s eyes drift to the timelines at the edge of her monitor, not quite buried beneath her chat windows. As she drags the cursor along the violet line, the viewport fades to black, ominous and blank right up until its endpoint, where everything becomes static.

_But what if there isn’t a later?_

It isn’t as if Kanaya hasn’t contemplated time, but it is not her forte. Her forte is Space: the constant distance between herself and those about whom she cares; the gap between the things she wants to happen and the things that do; the emptiness she feels when she realizes that what she has isn’t what she longs for.

With Rose’s timeline opened up to her, the Veil seems timeless. Kanaya spends hours watching Rose spend hours in LOLAR libraries scanning dusty pages. She’s looking for something, but for what, Kanaya can’t imagine. Neither has moved in too long, one staring at a screen, the other staring at a book. It would be more productive, certainly more interesting, to skip to another point in the timeline, but Kanaya cannot bring herself to scroll away. The view is just close enough that Kanaya can see Rose's eyes intently focused on her reading, as if it holds the answers she needs, as if it can save them. Save her.

Kanaya’s not sure anything can save her. (The timeline sits, unchanging, on the side of the screen.) Rose is headstrong and hellbent on her self-imposed mission and she’s spending less and less time talking to anyone (to Kanaya), less time listening to reason (to Kanaya). She is convinced she knows what’s best because she’s Rose and she always knows what’s best. Kanaya has skimmed through enough of Rose's life to realize that much. Rose has to be right because there is no one in her life to tell her what’s right – or perhaps only because there is no one in her life to tell her she’s wrong.

(Understandable, Kanaya thinks, because not too long ago she thought the same. The fabled tentacleTherapist was untouchable, the light she needed to guide her through the game, but now Kanaya thinks she's discovering some truths the walkthrough didn't tell her. That Seers are always blind in some way or another, even the ones with perfect vision. That heroes of Light are far too easily trapped in darkness.)

It can only have been a few hours at most – her hours, not Rose’s – but Kanaya feels as if she knows this alien girl already. Everything about her is foreign, from her odd, pale skin to her impossibly lavender eyes to her lack of horns and fangs. Her manner of speaking is confusing and riddled with mysteries about strange human culture and emotions. But the set of her feet when she grips her wands for action and the way she strides forward with nearly-reckless purpose and her disdain for the forces that oppose her, be them monsters or particularly stubborn stone walls or her own friends – this is familiar. Kanaya has seen this before. She knows how it ends, and it plays out like a movie before her, pre-recorded and placed on the other side of the screen where she is powerless to stop it. A tragedy, but one from which she can't look away.

So she watches the screen, chin in one palm, world condensed to a square of pixels. Rose has destroyed an inordinate number of things in the past few hours – her hours, not Kanaya’s. Temples dissected, ruins obliterated, mountains collapsed. Some of the pink turtles run the moment they set eyes on her. She has no eyes for them.

Kanaya has eyes only for her. She’s fascinating, an indecipherable web of cunning and courtesy and straightforwardness and sarcasm. Kanaya wants to unravel her the way Rose pulls at knots of yarn when she needs a moment to think. Her face is impassive (like always) and her eyes fixed on her objective (like always) and Kanaya would give so much just to know what occupies her mind, to hear her spell out the carefully-crafted logic behind each move she makes.

But there is never enough time. So focused on Rose’s timeline, Kanaya has forgotten her own, and all too quickly the clock grinds back into motion.

She supposes it wasn't all bad; it has culminated in her becoming a rainbow drinker, and in Rose’s survival and arrival on the meteor. But there have been many deaths, many bodies, many wastes, and the game still is not over -- just paused.

Sitting against the wall in one of the scarcely-decorated and still-chairless rooms of the meteor’s buildings, Kanaya ignores the book on her lap. It’s hardly been a human week, according to Dave’s estimation (which is probably not an estimation at all), and according to Rose’s estimation they won’t arrive at their destination for something akin to another hundred and fifty-five of them.

Her eyes skim a line for the fourth time, the meaning lost again as someone enters the room. Kanaya feels more than hears the figure approaching her, light footsteps that barely brush the ground. When she looks up she sees blue shoes, bare calves, follows the contours of the orange robe past the swirls on her waist and past the yellow sun to a pale, curious face.

After watching her Sburban misadventures, Kanaya has become used to Rose at work, Rose determined to win, Rose ripping things apart. This is a different Rose, happier than Kanaya has seen her recently, a weight lifted off her shoulders. She is by no means carefree, or even joyful, but the impassive expression Kanaya has memorized has shifted to something more serene. For all her guardedness, the interest in her eyes and the slightest hint of a smile at the edge of her lips look entirely sincere.

“I believe you expressed some desire for my assistance in fashioning outfits?”

Kanaya blinks.

“I apologize for the belated response,” Rose continues, and extends a hand. “But I’ve opened up some time in my schedule and I believe I can pencil you in.”

When Kanaya gently grips Rose’s hand, Rose pulls her up, never taking her eyes from Rose’s. For a moment their hands remain connected and Kanaya counts the heartbeats, sure Rose must be able to feel her pulse. Then Rose pulls away and motions for Kanaya to take the lead.

“If you’re not too busy, of course,” Kanaya responds with what she hopes is just the right hint of sarcasm.

But Rose only smiles, and Kanaya can’t help but immediately do the same. “I have plenty of time.”


	12. Illusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #45  
> John/Rose

It’s 6:55 on a Wednesday evening and despite any plans you might have had for the night, you find yourself standing outside an auditorium looking at the poster for a magic show.

John Crocker is a magician, not of the wizardly variety that you write about between classes, but the sort to do tricks at a child’s birthday party. You think that’s about all illusionists of his kind are known for nowadays, anyway; he may have become famous a few decades ago, dazzling crowds with fantastic illusions on stages and black and white TV, but the world has moved on to science and technology and left Mr. Crocker’s magic act a quaint novelty, as far as the population at wide is concerned.

Nevertheless, the theater has a good-sized audience present, you note as you walk in. Perhaps it’s because Crocker is retiring soon; this series of shows will likely be his last.

You take your seat near the aisle not quite knowing what to expect. What you certainly didn’t expect is the jolt you feel when he takes the stage and introduces himself. You’ve never met him in your life, you’re certain, but seeing him in person only intensifies the odd feeling you get when you see his likeness on posters or old videos.

He guesses cards drawn by volunteers, makes a stuffed rabbit disappear, and saws a container in half without harming the dummy inside, and all the while you have trouble seeing the man on stage. You imagine him as if he were your age, hair more black than gray, no mustache, just charmingly imperfect teeth and a wide grin. Perhaps in blue; blue would suit him, you think, the color of his eyes (though you've never seen them).

He’s been picking volunteers from the audience all night – usually those who offer, but then he gestures to you and smiles. You wait for someone around you to stand up, answering the summons, even though you know he’s looking at you alone. You have never been one for the limelight, but it doesn’t cross your mind to refuse.

There’s something almost surreal about the walk to the stage, where the lights are too bright and you can see every wrinkle on his genial face (he really is older than you thought). He beckons you closer, until you almost have to look up at him – he’s taller than you thought, too – never taking his eyes from yours. Just as you expected, they’re blue, almost unnaturally so, and you wonder if his peers were as vocal about the oddity as yours were.

He reaches toward your face as if to cup your cheek, and you find yourself mildly and oddly disappointed when his hand skims your hair, never actually touching. It comes away with a pair of fresh, trimmed roses and the audience cheers. It’s the perfect opportunity to discover how he’s pulling these tricks, making flowers bloom from thin air and telling his guests things he shouldn’t know. But the opportunity is lost when he speaks. 

“Thank you for coming.” His voice is low enough that only you can hear, and you think there's something wistful in his expression, even as he smiles, winks, and offers you the roses.

Your fingers brush his as you take the stems from his hand, and you open your mouth, feeling the need to say something, anything. But the moment is over, the spotlight shifted, and you’re headed back to your seat carrying two roses.

(When you arrive home you find the most elaborate but fittingly-sized vase you can for them, perhaps a passive-aggressive response to a stranger’s mocking sentimental gesture. Perhaps something else, because you keep them long past their use, and have a strange hesitancy to throw them out even once they’re withered and bare.)

You look for him after the show, inconspicuously hanging around the backstage entrances, but are offered no more than a glance as he leaves side-by-side with a woman his age and a man closer to yours. You consider that you might follow him, find his contact information, win another chance to speak to him, but for once in your life you’re not sure what you would say.

It’s an odd feeling, you think, twirling the two stems between your fingers as you walk home alone. Words come naturally to you and it’s a rare thought that you can’t vocalize, but you don’t know how to describe this feeling as anything other than  _wrong_ , a description almost as absurd as it is inadequate.

 

*** * ***

 

You learn of John Crocker’s death in the newspaper, where a short obituary is printed on a back page – more than local news, less than a header. It doesn’t surprise you. You’ve always known he was old enough to be your father, perhaps even your grandfather, his youthful demeanor notwithstanding.

The information lingers in the back of your mind for the next few days, making it hard to write. You’re pleased to see a somewhat similar reaction from your usually-stoic new acquaintance Dave Strider. With his help the pieces have been falling into place, and you think you understand a little better why you’ve collected as many extant videos of Mr. Crocker’s shows as possible in the last few years.

It’s quite a while before you locate his grave, and another while before you find the time to visit it. It doesn’t escape your notice that it’s roughly seven o’clock on a Wednesday evening when you enter the cemetery, the sun nearly set, casting black and purple shadows across the grass and stone that might spook you were you not an enthusiast of all things grim.

It’s a fairly simple grave, one that you know doesn’t contain his remains but bears his name and a fond inscription nonetheless. For a while you simply stand before it, mulling over snippets of information about the John you met and the John you wanted to meet.

The shadows grow longer and you know you can’t stay. The path you see ahead of you is long and convoluted and demands your full attention -- no matter if you can't shake the feeling that John Crocker should be walking it with you.

You place the two roses you brought before his grave marker, brush your hand over the stone for a moment, and wrap your scarf tighter around your neck as you turn to leave.


	13. (Re-) Introduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #1  
> John/Rose

Beneath the ship is nothing but blackness, just empty space as far as John can tell. He kind of expected it to be different on the other side of the fourth wall, more colorful, a picturesque setting to the next grand adventure, but it looks like mostly nothingness still.

He sits at the front of the ship with his legs hanging over the side, pretending there’s water below. He can remember a ferry ride he took with his dad once, across the Sound, the whole duration of which he spent leaning over the rail watching the wake of the ship. It’s a little disconcerting, having nothing between the battleship’s edge and the void below, but he knows if he falls Jade will stop the ship until he can simply fly back up. It’s not moving nearly as fast anymore.

If he closes his eyes it kind of feels like he’s sitting still. Jade explained that, something about constant motion and relativity, but that sciency stuff isn’t really John’s thing. He thinks it’s just because there’s no wind. It doesn’t feel like you’re moving without wind. Sometimes he conjures it (though he’s not really sure how; even he knows there’s no air in space, but he’s pretty sure he’s still breathing, so he tries not to think about it) but that got boring after a while. It’s been three years.

Three years, and they’re finally here.

He leans back on his palms and smiles listening to the voices behind him, voices deeper than the last time he heard them. Once they had all met and Rose had explained what they were going to do, most of them had split up to make use of the precious downtime they have until they need to act. John has already spent enough time with Karkat that the troll left him to go find Gamzee again, and he’s pretty sure Jade is off with Kanaya and Terezi somewhere. Rose and Dave have been discussing something about the plan for a while, but even as John starts to think about it the voices behind him fade.

For a moment he thinks he's alone – footsteps retreated farther into the ship and then disappeared – but just as he's about to turn around something bright and exceedingly fast appears to his right and he flinches instinctively.

Oh.

“Hi Rose!”

He smiles, and she lowers herself to the ground beside him.

"Hello, John. I'm surprised you're not with the others."

John shrugs. "Well, Karkat got tired of my 'wiggler antics' or whatever alien thing he said, and I think Dave and Jade kind of wanted to hang out soon, and I don't really know any of the other trolls…"

"I'd imagine it's a lot to take in all at once," Rose says. "Particularly after spending so much time nearly alone."

"Heheh, nah, I don't mind it!" John swings his legs against the side of the ship. "It's great to see all of you, even if it did get really loud really fast. Usually it's only like this when the consorts are around."

Rose's grin is somewhat wry. "Somehow I'm not surprised to hear that Karkat and Terezi are the alien equivalent of a crowd of crocodiles. But really, if you'd like to take the opportunity to get to know them, I suggest you do it soon. We don't have another three years."

"How much time  _do_ we have?"

He turns to Rose, and she gazes off into the distance as if she can see something more than impenetrable blackness. Maybe she can; John doesn't know.

“I suppose a few hours, give or take.”

“You can’t tell exactly?”

“I’m a Hero of Light, John, not of Time. My powers aren’t quite that mathematical.”

“Yeah… so what is it that you… do, exactly? I mean, I can move wind, and Jade can move things, and Dave can move himself through time, but it doesn’t seem like your powers really...” He scratches his head. “Do anything?”

The look Rose gives him from the corner of her eye is slightly disdainful. “Just because I don’t physically manipulate objects hardly means my powers don’t ‘do anything.’ Seers operate on a more transcendental level.”

He blinks a few times and asks, “What?”

She sighs, but before she can respond, he sits up and continues, “Wait, no, I get that you see things. You’re a Seer, duh. So I guess it’s just all in your head? But I mean, as soon as we were in internet range you messaged us exactly how to find you, and now you just told everyone exactly what to do in a few hours. So do you just, like… know what’s going to happen?”

“Not quite. I fear my confidence in my plan has given you a slightly exaggerated portrait of my abilities. Essentially, I have foreknowledge of the best possible outcome of any given situation. It’s by no means vision omnipresent; I see only one outcome, with no awareness of the other possibilities, and how much of the outcome I see or the path required to get there is hardly constant.”

“So is it like… flashbacks? But in the future? Future flash forwards?”

“That sounds redundant. Besides, don’t be quite so literal. It’s not so much a ‘picture’ as an idea, defined by snippets of information in a more abstract sense than snapshots of what’s to come. The four of us on a ship together. Two and a half years on a meteor. A message from a distant cohort.”

He tilts his head to the side slightly. “I’m not sure I get it.”

“That would hardly come as a surprise.” At his indignant scoff, she amends, “It’s a rather abstruse concept to fit into this narrow construct we call spoken language.”

“Am I hearing what I think I’m hearing?” She looks at him. “Rose Lalonde, Miss Wordy McBookpants, can’t explain something?”

A teasing grin spreads across his face as the edges of her lips twitch downwards. “There are plenty of widely-recognized ideas that are considered nearly impossible to verbalize.”

“Excuses!”

“Then explain to me how you control the wind.”

“Well, I kind of take my hand like this, and wave it, and… the air moves?”

Except for her hair waving in the ensuing breeze, Rose doesn't react.

“Obviously there’s more to it than that! I don’t really–”

“Excuses, John.”

“I mean, I don’t understand it myself, it just kind of… happens?" He gestures wildly as if that will make his point clearer. "Like there’s this force, and it’s outside of me but also part of me, and I command it… man, that probably sounds dumb.”

Rose shrugs. “To those not Of Breath, perhaps. Just as cognitive powers must be rather unintuitive to those who aren’t Seers. It’s a fascinating system, when you think about it. It’s as if the roles were designed for us – or perhaps we were designed for the roles.”

He rolls his eyes, though he’s smiling. “Oh yeah, I totally had you pegged as a Hero of Light. Between all your happy sunshine rainbow monsters and your peppy attitude, we all saw it coming.”

“Shush, you know that’s not what it means.”

“Yeah, yeah, Seer of Light, sees future fortune or whatever.” He’s silent for a few moments, rubbing his chin with one hand, before adding, "The best possible outcome, huh… I'm sorry but that sounds like..."

She raises an eyebrow. "Like?"

Suddenly he's leaning over and speaking in the most suave voice he can muster, which sounds – unsurprisingly – more like a cheesy romcom scene re-enacted by a 15-year-old boy. “Hey baby, I'm a Seer of Light. I can see the best possible outcome of tonight, and it involves you and me. Wanna make it happen?”

Rose stares. “John,  _no_.”

Still, she can’t quite keep from smiling, and it doesn't go unnoticed. John waggles his eyebrows in a fashion more ridiculous than romantic and goes on, “If I’m  _seeing light_  it must be heaven, ‘cause you look like an angel.”

Rose puts on the smoothest face she can muster in light of his wavering expression, nearly split by the giggles threatening to overtake them both. “Are you sure you’re not a Thief instead of an Heir? Because you’re taking my breath away.”

“Nah, I must be a Seer too, ‘cause I can see me and you together.”

“Oh,  _swoon_ ,” she says, putting a hand to her forehand and falling into his lap.

It takes a few minutes for the laughter to die down, and Rose is left looking up at John from where her head rests on his thighs, still unable to keep from smiling.

“You know, I’ve missed you,” he says, and it comes out rather softer than he intended.

"I've missed you too." Rose raises one hand a few inches, pauses, and then lays her arm across her ribs. "The meteor was really quite dreary without our Prospit partners. The closest we ever came to genuine mirth was Terezi's cackles echoing down the halls. Wait, no, I think Dave might have cracked a smile once."

"Don't worry Rose, we will put you on a strict regimen of giggling and chuckling until you've recovered. Someday you will be happy again, doctor's promise." He pauses. "I can't make any guarantees about Dave, though."

"Oh no. Is it too late?"

"It just might be. We'll have to hand him over to Dr. Harley. But don't worry, she is one of the finest in the field. She knows the best remedy for cases like yours."

"And what, dare I ask, is that?"

Rose has been too busy watching his face to notice his hand creeping closer to her, and she's unable to contain a yelp as he begins tickling her sides, and then she's trying to sit up and remove his hands at the same time and laughing like he's never heard her laugh before.

"John, s-stop, I'm going to, to fall off the ship," she manages to gasp, but she can't seem to fend off both his hands at once.

"See, it's working already! Our methods have a one-hundred-percent success rate."

Rose grasps futilely at his arms and tries to push him away. "You are, you're going to be single-h-handedly responsible for my death, li-literally at your hands, stop!"

When he lets go she falls back onto his legs and he can't stop snickering until she finally manages to get her breath under control.

"I take back every positive thing I have said or thought about you in the last fifteen minutes. I hate you."

"You were thinking positive things about me? Awwww."

"Hate, John. Pure, unadulterated loathing. The darkest kismesissitude pales in the wake of my pitch-black abhorrence of you."

"Pft, whatever." One of his hands hovers awkwardly near her side; he ends up placing it on the ground next to him. "You're just mad because you didn't see it coming."

Rose opens her mouth to reply but a deeper voice beats her to it.

"What the fuck is even going on out here, I leave for less than twenty minutes and when I come back Rose is flailing like she's drowning and shrieking like a banshee. Do I even wanna know?"

John turns around to see Dave stepping out onto the deck, trying to look uninterested, hands in his pockets.

"Probably not," Rose says, and sits up without facing him. "I'm not certain you could handle it."

"Yes, this is a very delicate operation," John adds. "Lives hang in the balance. If we fail, children may never smile again."

"Yeah that explains why you're giggling like five-year-olds. All kinds of important shit at stake here, right, in the middle of nowhere, watching all this goddamn nothing like a TV so broken it ain't even got static to mesmerize you for the hours you would've wasted doing abso-fucking-lutely nothing anyway."

"Are you bored, Dave?" Rose asks, twisting around to stare at his shades.

"Oh hell no, after that three year road trip staring at the same shitty scenery out the window while Vantas complains about me not-touching him? This place is haps central, no shortage of blindingly gold tourist traps here. In fact I heard Jade's giving a tour to the troll girls, think I'll get in on that while the offer's good."

Dave's cape swishes behind him as he turns to leave, muttering, "If I can fucking find them before I go blind, Jesus Christ, who builds a ship and thinks 'I'm gonna paint this shit gold,' camouflage ain't even in the Prospitian dictionary..."

His voice fades with his footsteps. Silence ensues.

Until Rose murmurs, "Heard you were looking for a knight in shining armor; looks like I'm right on  _time_ ," and John bursts out laughing again.

"Knight on time?" he suggests.

She lays back and props herself up on one elbow. "Even my game title thinks I'm  _all the rage_."

"You must be a Space player, because you're out of this world."

"I'm going out of my  _mind_ trying to get you to see how perfect we'd be."

A long pause. Eventually John says, "Knight, blood... nah, Karkat's a lost cause."

"I've been aware of that for years," Rose says.

John finally follows Rose's example and flops on his back, folding his arms behind his head. "You know, I'm never going to be able to take a game title seriously again."

"You have only yourself to blame, John."

"Ha, as if. You are fully complicit, Miss Lalonde."

"Okay. I admit to everything, officer. It was I who defaced John's conception of our incredibly serious roles in this game with terrible pickup lines, for the sole purpose of seeing him giggle like a schoolgirl every time someone says 'seer.'"

He snorts but she can hear the chuckle underneath and gives him a smirk.

"You've ruined my life, Rose. Dave will never let me live down giggling."

"I try."

"Did you know all this was going to happen? Is that why you let me tickle you instead of flashstepping away?"

"Perhaps."

He rolls his eyes. "Of course. Hey, so I was thinking, since Jade is showing everyone else around, d'you want me to give you a tour too? Or have you  _Seen_  the whole ship already?"

"I have not, in fact, spontaneously gained knowledge of the entire battleship. You're not obsolete yet."

"Great!" John gets to his feet and, almost as an afterthought, extends a hand to Rose. "I bet we can make this quicker than Jade can. Dave's probably asking a bunch of inane questions and slowing them down."

As soon as she's up he tugs her in the direction of the door, only remembering to let go of her hand once they're inside.

Rose refrains from commenting; instead she replies, "His idea of showing them a good  _time_ , no doubt," and they're still laughing as they head down the halls.


	14. Horror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #65  
> John/Rose

"Well that was, uh…"

John presses a button on the remote and both the TV and DVD player go off, leaving the room almost entirely dark. Rose, next to him on the couch, gives him a sideways glance.

"Yes?"

"It was… interesting."

"Eloquently put."

For a few moments John continues to stare at the blank TV. Rose sighs and stands up.

"It's rather late. We should probably get to bed."

"Yeah…" John takes the hand Rose offers to pull him to his feet, and follows her down the hall. When they reach Rose's room, she turns around to find him still standing behind her.

She raises an eyebrow and asks again, "Yes…?"

"Eheh. Well…" He smiles a little sheepishly and reaches up to rub the back of his neck. "It's like two in the morning and we've been watching horror movies all night, so I just thought maybe…"

"…You could sleep in my bed where you would assuredly be protected from the shapeshifting aliens, because it's inconceivable that they might target you if you're not sleeping alone."

"No! What do you think I am, like, eight?" He snorts. "I know I'm not going to be attacked by aliens, jeez! In case you missed the subtle hints in the credits where it said 'Hey, this movie is a work of fiction, don't shit yourself over it!' the movie is, in fact, a work of fiction."

"Yes, I'm aware." Rose leans against the door frame. "And that's why you're not shitting yourself over it. And why you jumped only twice, and clutched my hand so tight I fear my fingers have been permanently melded together."

"Yeah, well…" John shifts his weight from foot to foot and looks down the hall. "Since you're  _obviously_  not scared at all and don't need me around tonight, I'll just be going to my own room then."

"Okay."

"Alone."

"All right."

"In the dark."

"I can see that."

"No matter what creepy, possessed object may be waiting for me behind the door."

"Surely."

"Okay. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

"See you in the morning."

"First thing."

"If I surviIIIIII–"

He turns around to leave only to jump when Rose touches his back; she has to bite back a laugh at the dirty look he shoots her.

"Get your pajamas on and get in here."

Instead of gratitude she gets another glare. John backs away from her for a few paces, then seems suddenly to remember that there are monsters lurking in the dark, and makes his way down the rest of the hallway with his back against the wall, trying and failing to look casual about it. Rose steps into her own room, briefly contemplates hiding behind the door to startle him again, and decides not to humiliate him further. The gambit is already all hers for the night anyway.

By the time John returns, carefully shutting the door behind him, Rose has turned out the lights and is just pulling down the covers on her bed. John wastes no time in joining her, tugging the sheets up to his neck and wrapping his arms around her. She runs her fingers through his hair as he shifts around until he's comfortable.

"Really though, John, from a psychological standpoint I can see why you would seek company to abate your fears–"

"Oh god no, don't do that."

"But in the context of the movie it makes little rational sense. The aliens were highly advanced shapeshifters, capable of convincingly taking the form of anyone around y–"

"Rose this is a horror movie, rational sense isn't on the radar."

"–ou, and so by turning to other humans for comfort you're increasing your likelihood of playing right into their trap."

"Rose. Rose, no."

"I'm just saying, John." She presses her nose into his hair, grinning against his forehead. "You could be running straight into their arms. Their slimy, alien arms."

She punctuates her comment by tightening her own arms around him, and he squirms a little.

"That's not funny."

"Certainly not. It won't be funny at all when they slither their oily appendages into your ears to melt your brain."

He tries harder to bury his head into the pillows. "Stooooop."

"Oh, but it's too late, John. Now that I have you your doom is inevitable. The only reason I've prolonged your life thus far is that I enjoy your psychological torture more than I will commandeering your mind, sifting through your most personal thoughts and memories, pulling the plug on–"

John grounds his hands on the mattress and pushes himself up to look down at her. "Why are you so terrible? Are you trying to scar me for life? Were the heads exploding and people rotting from the inside out just not enough to satisfy your need to make everyone around you uncomfortable with your creepy tastes in things?"

She can tell by the tone of his voice that he's being facetious; still, she says, "To be honest, John, I wasn't expecting you to react at all. You have such a penchant for ghosts and the mildly supernatural."

"Yeah, well. It's not like I'm traumatized. But the things you like are just disturbing, okay." He flops over onto his back beside her and stares at the ceiling. "Also you're not scaring me, I am one hundred percent sure you are not an alien impersonating my girlfriend."

"That's a lot of surety. Why the conviction?"

"Rose, please."

Rose shifts onto her side and props herself up on one elbow. "A stunning defense. Come on, now. How do you intend to reveal my true identity?"

"Will the real Rose Lalonde please either stand up or stop being an asshole who likes to make fun of people who get – understandably! – a little scared by really concerning movies late at night."

"I don't foresee either of those things happening. Try again."

"Okay, well." He moves to worm his way next to her throat and nuzzle her neck. "You sure sound like Rose."

"It's not hard to imitate a person's speech pattern if you study her long enough."

"You look exactly like Rose, too."

"Shapeshifters, John."

"You feel exactly like Rose." He runs a hand up her arm and then lets it drift down her side to her waist. "No slimy tentacle goo or whatever."

Rose swallows and tries to prevent a shiver from running down her back. "Give our alien overlords a little more credit. Skin is not hard to replicate, either."

He hums against her neck. "You smell like Rose."

"Any invader half worth their salt would have the intelligence to steal my shampoo."

"Nope, I'm not buying it." John pulls back a few inches to look at her. "If you look like Rose, and feel like Rose, and smell like Rose, and sound like Rose, there is an extremely high possibility you are actually a strange, highly-intelligent, and wickedly-cruel sentient life form trying to scare me. Also known as Rose."

"Even disregarding their obvious inadequacy, I'm not sure your tests are all-inclusive. Aren't you missing something?"

"Am I? I will bet you anything in the world," he murmurs, leaning up to brush his nose against hers, "that you taste like Rose too."

Her eyes flutter shut. "Prove it. Test your theory."

So he does, closing what little gap is left between their lips, and she wraps her arms around his neck to pull him over her as she settles on her back.

When John finally pulls away all he says is, "Nope, I still win," before pressing a quick kiss to her cheek, and then her chin.

"I concede nothing," she says, and tilts her head to allow him better access to her neck.

He pauses to say, "Well, I concede nothing either." A kiss to her throat. "But if I were to accept you as my alien overlord and conqueror." To her collarbone. "What would you demand of me?"

"Mmmm. Take me now, sub-creature?"

His movements stop and she opens her eyes just in time to see him look up, eyes narrowed. "This was all just a set-up so you could say that, wasn't it."

"Yes, John, everything from the decision to watch gruesome horror films onward was leading up to this. No other motive ever crossed my mind."

"I knew it."

"But speaking of set-ups." Rose takes the side of his head in her hand, threading her fingers through the hair over his ear. "There's no need to act as if the movies scared you more than they really did. You don't need an excuse to sleep here, you know."

"Good," John says, and leans down to kiss her once more. "Because I'm never marathoning horror movies with you again."


	15. Mother Nature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #22  
> John/Rose

"Are you familiar with that inexplicable feeling that something is crawling on you?"

Rose shifts restlessly in her sleeping bag. It’s been almost ten minutes since she turned out the lamp in the tent, and not one of them has been entirely free of some kind of paranoia. She’s certain there was nothing on or in her bedding when she went to lay down; she was careful to keep the tent closed when no one was entering or leaving, and so far has yet to see a single bug inside.

Next to her, John is still as a statue except for the even rise and fall of his chest. It’s a big sleeping bag, to be sure – big enough to fit them both, but not with much room to spare. It's a rare moment when they're not somehow touching.

"Yeah, of course,” he says. “Is that why you keep fidgeting? If you drive your bony elbow into my side one more time–"

"It's an entirely psychological phenomenon." Rose attempts to move her arm less disruptively. She’s not sure she succeeds. "If you think about nothing but legs traversing your skin you begin to feel it, and then you become extremely uncomfortable, find yourself unable to sleep, and accidentally puncture the chest of your significant other with your bony elbow."

She brushes at her shoulder, trying to convince herself that it was just a stray hair and unnerved nonetheless, and then tries to settle back into her bed. But the moment she thinks she might finally find some peace, something lightly brushes her side and she nearly jumps. When she rubs her skin and the outside of her pajamas, ignoring John’s protests about her movements, there is nothing there.

Laying down again, something makes the skin on her calf prickle, and she scratches at it with her other foot. John shifts beside her.

Wait.

"John."

"What?" He opens his eyes and fixes them on her face, though she knows he can't see a thing without his glasses, much less in the dark. She doesn't reply.

It takes another half a minute – a ghost of movement against her thigh, and she snaps out her hand to catch John's hovering above her leg.

"Dammit, how did you know?"

"You're not nearly as subtle as you think you are." Rose releases her death-grip on his hand only to thread her fingers with his. "And if you don't stop you're sleeping outside, where you really will be covered in bugs."

"Oh, what-ever. It's only payback for all those nights last winter you kept pressing your cold feet against my legs. Do you retain any heat in your body? Are you actually a lizard and you freeze at night unless you sap the warmth out of me?"

"Drat, you found me out."

He pulls her closer to him. "So it's true, when you get cold at night and cling to me as if your life depends on it, it really does."

"I do no such thing," she argues from against his chest.

"Yes you do."

"That is entirely you. You take advantage of the tiniest excuse to smother me and call it cuddling."

"Lies. Lies and slander, Rose. Besides, you can’t pretend you don’t like it."

Outside the bushes rustle in the wind, but everything is still inside the tent.

"No," Rose says, relaxing in his arms as the prickling sensation gives way to a steady, comfortable warmth. "I can’t."


End file.
